Constitutional reform: PL still intends to stay away from House committee

The Labour Party says it will continue to stay away from the parliamentary select committee tasked to discuss institutional and constitutional changes until certain conditions are met. But it refuses to list the “conditions” that have to be met for it to return.

“There are certain conditions that must be met to right wrongs and if there is goodwill they should not pose a problem,” a spokesman said, when asked whether the opposition will heed President George Abela’s recent call for the select committee to start meeting again.

Last year, the PL stopped taking part in the select committee discussions following uproar in Parliament on the Delimara power station extension vote when Foreign Minister Tonio Borg and other Nationalist Party MPs said they heard Labour MP Justyn Caruana vote against her own party’s stand and in favour of the government’s. Dr Caruana had vehemently denied doing so and the opposition interpreted the government’s side move as an attempt to cover Parliamentary Secretary Mario Galea’s mistake when he voted with the Labour in the same vote.

It is widely believed that the opposition will not return to the negotiating table unless the PN apologises to Dr Caruana.

“For a parliamentary select committee to function, it must be based on mutual respect and not on continuous attempts and leaks aimed at undermining it,” the Labour spokesman said.

The issue of constitutional reform was raised by Dr Abela during his visit to the Broadcasting Authority last week. He said the time had come for the select committee “to start meeting again”.

Dr Abela specifically talked about the importance of having a broadcasting regulator that was totally independent from the two big political parties. The BA and public broadcasting were two issues that had to be scrutinised by the select committee.

“Labour remains open to discussions if there are the necessary pre-requisites,” the spokesman said. But the spokesman insisted that the PL wanted “a holistic” reform of the Constitution. “Rather than going for a piecemeal approach, one should go for wide-ranging reforms where discussions should not be limited to politicians but include civil society,” he said.

The party, he added, would be proposing a constitutional convention with the “ambitious target of giving birth to a Second Republic”.

Last week, Dr Abela said that the second edition of the President’s Forum – a themed public discussion hosted by the President – next year would focus on institutional and constitutional reform.